Poksak donates 25 cents from every bag sold to their scholarship fund, administered by OFA. The bags are wonderful – OFA staff members carry them everywhere. They fit in your handbag, the glove compartment of your car or your raincoat pocket. Get one or get several. Save the environment, have a handy-dandy tote bag ready any time you need it, and support America’s foster youth. Talk about a win-win-win!

Poksak and OFA are featured on two websites this week – check it out at mothersactingup.org and kidoinfo.com.

FedEx is a longtime, generous sponsor of OFA’s Care Package Program. Every year they ship over 7500 packages to OFA students all across the country, and that makes our students smile!

But it’s their corporate culture that I think should be noted – the job done well and with pleasure. Not only do they ship the boxes they’ve supplied with preprinted labels they prepared for us, but our corporate contact calls US to ask when we’d like to send them out. 30 plus inches of snow? No problem, they still prioritized our pick up and delivery, No loading dock at the building to pick up 2500 boxes? FedEx did it by hand.

I once thanked our pickup driver, Bill Triggs, and he just looked at me sort of puzzled and said, “That’s our job.” It had taken nearly two hours for him to get the boxes from the storage room, out to the hall, onto the cart, wheeled through the lobby and into the truck. The volunteers stuffing boxes were so impressed that he did it all with humor and style!

Once again, care packages are on their merry way to the wonderful students in our programs. They will tear open the boxes and marvel at the beauty of the hand-made scarf they receive. They will delight at all the other goodies and school supplies stuffed in the FedEx box, but few to none of them will have a clue about the amount of work, heart and caring that went into each and every package.

At our last Capitol Hill Care Package event, David Pryor Jr., then Senior Federal Affairs Representative of FedEx actually thanked OFA for allowing FedEx to be a Care Package sponsor. He recognized the other sponsors for the items they donated to go into the care packages. He closed his remarks with a very moving statement to the effect that, “At the end of the day, we are just a box. It’s what goes into the box that shows how much people care about these kids.”

WOW – FedEx is so much more than a just a box! Without their generous donation of the shipping, we could not send care packages to our students. Bottom line, without FedEX we couldn’t tell these young people that people are thinking about them and that their education hopes and dreams count.

So, from all of us, THANK YOU FedEX!

Signed, Lynn Davis
OFA Community Partnerships Manager

Due to the weather in D.C., the Tuesday, Feb. 9 event has been canceled.

More details on the Foster Care to Success program and how groups of people can get involved will be available after March 1. In April, which is National Volunteer Month, groups of volunteers will be engaged and pursuing activities that will make a difference in so many young people’s lives.

This year, OFA will be joined by a special guest: actor and child advocate David Keith. Best known for his Golden Globe-nominated role in An Officer and A Gentleman, David is also is a spokesman for PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children, and was recently recognized for his advocacy work with a 2008 Director’s Community Leadership Award from the FBI.

Meet a few of the 4,000 college students OFA supports annually and hear about their hopes, their dreams and their determination to succeed despite the challenges unique to having been in foster care.

Students Shanna G of Maryland, attending Morgan State University, and Faith S of South Carolina, attending Winthrop University, attended the event on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC with Orphan Foundation of America’s CEO, Eileen McCaffrey.

These scholarships are awarded based on a combination of merit and need, and funding levels are determined based on cost of attendance and other resources. Apply early!

To find out how you can support an OFA scholarship student, contact scholarships@orphan.org.

Ms. Bernstein has been funding scholarships for many years, and the student she currently helps to fund, Nanjiba will be graduating from West Virginia University in May 2010 with a dual degree in Marketing and French. As Nanjiba recently said, “I remember five years ago, I walked into the University, frightened and feeling small. I felt that graduation was so far away but now it’s only one more semester away. Some days I didn’t think I would come to see that day for graduation; when every homework and test seemed to difficult to accomplish, but now I am almost at the end of the tunnel and cannot wait to walk proudly with two degrees across that stage; and it’s all because of your generosity and the support from OFA.”

Ms. Bernstein supports OFA and the scholarship program in honor of her two children and the daughter of her heart, a young woman for whom Ms. Bernstein and her husband are “voluntary parents.” As Ms. Bernstein says, “I simply can’t imagine going to college and facing young adulthood without parents or a family.”

Ms. Bernstein also supports the OFA Care Package program and recently contributed packages for three OFA scholars who attend The George Washington University.

THANK YOU, Mrs. Bernstein! It is the investment and support of generous individuals like you that gets our students through college. Truly, their success is a testament to your belief in America’s foster youth.

To find out how you can support an OFA scholarship student, contact scholarships@orphan.org. To contribute to our Care Package Program, click HERE.

This past summer, 20 OFA students spent six weeks in Washington, DC, working at congressional offices, non-profits, and corporations. Rounding out their six weeks in Washington, InternAmerica students were treated to a host of workshops for professional development: resume writing, networking, time management skills, etc. Hosted by national corporations, these workshops provided students with tools and skills to launch their careers after graduation.

Think this might be an opportunity for you? Find out more about our InternAmerica program.

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There are not many things to say that will adequately cover how I feel about all that you do. I have not been very good at expressing my gratitude. Partly because of my own memory issues, and partly because I tend to get overwhelmed with gratitude and then don’t know what to say! Thank-you doesn’t seem like it properly expresses what I feel.

OFA has been an amazing network of support. One of my strongest memories was of when, early on in my relationship with OFA, my engine totally went out in my car. I told you about it with no real intention other than venting. I was blown away when I received a check to fix my car. There have been so many times where I have seen fellow students run into trouble and turned to their parents for help. I have always tried to keep perspective, but have always had a part of me that was envious and sad that I didn’t have that kind of support. When you paid for my car repair, I realized that I truly did have that kind of support.

Aside from the financial support, you guys are just an awesome group of people. Your emails were always consistently loving and upbeat. I think the first couple of years of college were really rough for me. I was going through a divorce and overwhelmed with life and just sad a lot. You did a great job of staying positive and reminded me to do the same without lecturing me; you just lead by example. As a result, I started noticing the way I tended to come off, and made a conscious effort to change my outlook. You have been a role model in more ways that you know.

In short, you are very loved and appreciated. I am married, graduated, and in the real world now, and it’s scary, but not nearly as it once was.

Please also know that if I can ever give back in any way, I would love to.

Sincerely,

April M.

Those who attended had a great time, and when we do this again in the spring we know we’ll have a crowd. Good things sometimes start small, after all.

And in the meantime, a dozen happy students not only met new friends, but will be eating scrumptious leftovers for the next couple of days!